


The Witch in Sto Radley

by DictionaryWrites



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe, Complicated Relationships, Divination, Gen, The Trousers of Time, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-11
Updated: 2019-03-11
Packaged: 2019-11-15 16:25:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18076859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DictionaryWrites/pseuds/DictionaryWrites
Summary: Lord Vetinari is injured on the way to Lancre, and the Patrician's caravan has to stop that he might see a healer.Just a little window into a different AU.





	The Witch in Sto Radley

“Where are we?” Lord Vetinari asked. His voice, if one knew it well – which Vimes thought he did, although not for lack of trying – sounded ever so slightly tighter and more tense than usual, but not by much. Never by much. He was lying back in the coach as best he could, his hand settled over the nasty wound in his thigh: it was just luck, Vimes supposed, that had made the fall catch _just_ where his old injury was.

He looked quite pale, and when he’d tried to stand, he’d fallen.

Lord Vetinari didn’t much _like_ being injured. No one did, but Lord Vetinari took it like it was some personal insult, as if being injured while singlehandedly taking out six assassins was some sort of grievous implication of a failing character.

“We’re on the road to Sto Radley, sir,” Vimes muttered. “We were coming up to the Carrack Mountains anyway, but now we’re having to turn toward the Skund Forest, although we won’t cross the border into Skund. It’s about twenty minutes ahead of us, but we’ve sent word ahead, and they’re having a doctor meet us there.”

They were travelling to Lancre for some great ball or other – Vimes hadn’t wanted to go at all, but when Vetinari had said _he_ was going, and that he would, of course, require Vimes’ assistance as the leader of his guard, he’d rather been trapped. He didn’t want to fathom why exactly it was important, but apparently, it was.

“Is the Lady Sybil alright?” Vetinari asked.

“Oh, she’s fine, sir,” Vimes said, and he leaned out of the coach, where he was standing on the step, and looked back at the next carriage in the caravan. He couldn’t see inside, of course, but he had no doubt his wife was settled just so on the seat, trying to read her book, and not really managing it.  She had been looking forward to this, he thought – she said a lot of the people in Lancre were rather nice, more so than the usual ilk of the aristocracy, who of course, she would never say a bad word against.

What she was really excited about, Vimes knew, was the _dragons_ that were bred by a friend of hers in the Carrack Mountains, but he didn’t mind that.

Vimes would take a dragon breeder over a king any day.

The coach went over a rock in the road, and he watched Vetinari’s mask momentarily flicker: his lips parted, his jaw shifting, his whole face tensing. He must have been in _agony_ , to show that much…

“Just twenty more minutes, sir,” Vimes said.

“Yes, Vimes,” Vetinari muttered. “You said.”

“What’re we going to do with Mr Peregrine, sir?” Vimes asked. For now, the body of Lord Vetinari’s personal clerk was wrapped in Vetinari’s cloak, and had been laid overtop of their trunks.

“We’ll see when we get into Sto Radley,” Vetinari said. He was staring not at Vimes, but at the cushioned seat of the other side of the coach, his expression unreadable. He was angry, though, Vimes knew that: Mr Peregrine had been his personal clerk for three years, and while he’d always had a face like he’d just sucked a lemon, he’d not been a bad sort. Vetinari was always angry when people went for his non-guard staff instead of him. “His mother lives in Chirm, so we might send him directly downriver: that would be the fastest way.” The railway tracks didn’t yet reach out this way. If they did…

“I’m sorry, sir,” Vimes said. Vetinari’s clerks – Wonse excluded – usually died in his service, often during the performance of their duty. He always felt it deeply when members of the Watch died, and he would have loved to believe that Vetinari didn’t care.

Of course, there were plenty of things Vimes would _like_ to believe.

Vetinari’s icy blue gaze flickered to meet Vimes’. “Yes, Vimes,” he said. “Me too.”

They rode the rest of the way in stony silence.

 **♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔**

Vetinari was carried, with a stretcher, from the coach and into an inn, which luckily had downstairs rooms as well as the two upstairs. Sto Radley was quite a big village, although not quite a town, and people sometimes stopped off here on the way to Skund, or the other way. Vimes was aware of flickers at the edge of his vision – black-suited men who seemed to disappear from sight as soon as you looked at them directly.

Vetinari’s Dark Clerks.

They would make sure the inn was safe and secure, and that was why Vimes felt comfortable kissing Sybil’s hand and letting her go find somewhere upstairs. They’d already missed their checkpoint at the base of the Carrack Mountains, some funny stop called Booda, but that didn’t matter: if it was bad enough that Vetinari couldn’t stand, they’d probably be here a few days, and would then turn back to Ankh-Morpork.

Such a _shame_ , Vimes thought, about the _ball_.

A young man named Spud had already brought in a bowl of steaming water, as well as a carafe to drink from. When Vetinari had quietly requested water to drink _instead_ of wine, he had been very quick about obeying, albeit visibly confused.

“Mr Drumknott will just be another few minutes, sir,” Spud said as he poured water into a glass for Lord Vetinari, looking at it with great suspicion, as if he’d never considered drinking the stuff before[1].

“And who is this man, Mr Spud?”

Spud hesitated for a second. Vimes could see the mental process playing out on his face: undoubtedly, this strangely lanky, freckly boy of sixteen had never been called _Mr_ before, and certainly, it had never been attached to his funny little nickname[2]. “Er,” he said, seeming to think better of explaining as he felt Vetinari’s hard gaze on his face, “he’s our witch, sir.”

Vimes frowned. “Your _witch_?” he repeated.

“Yessir,” Spud said. “He’s a right good healer, sir, you needn’t worry about that!”

“But your witch is a man?” Vimes asked.

“Yessir,” Spud said, and then bit a protuberant lower lip with uneven teeth. “Er, well, we’ve not a doctor close by, sir, and Mr Drumknott does the medicine all around this area, ever since he took over from his aunt, Mrs Mallowmint, because _she_ left to look after—”

“A male witch is merely a surprise, Mr Spud,” Vetinari said pleasantly. “He isn’t a warlock?”

Spud’s dirty, sun-weathered, freckled face abruptly paled by a few shades. “Oh,” he said, “oh, no, I wouldn’t… He gets right arsey, sir, about— Oh, not arsey! Not arsey! That’s impolite, isn’t it?”

Vimes rubbed his forehead, and Vetinari allowed his thin lips to quirk up just slightly at their very edges.

“Er, well,” Spud went on anxiously, “he isn’t a warlock, sir, no, and he gets right… Right upset, like, about people who call ‘emselves warlocks. Says it’s stupid, he does, but if you mention it, sir, you will get a lecture and no mistake, and it’s not a very nice one.”

“I shall endeavour to keep the word from passing my lips, Mr Spud.”

“Yessir.”

 **♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔**

“Oh, is it raining, Mr Drumknott?” Vimes heard Spud ask anxiously outside the slightly ajar door to the inn room.

Vetinari was lying back on the bed, sipping at a mug of water, and he looked very pale indeed: he’d stripped back his robe and cut away the trousers he wore underneath, and Vimes had caught a glimpse of swollen, livid flesh on his thigh before he’d put the covers over it, already scarred from where Vimes had shot him with the Gonne, all those years ago. How long, now? Nine years, he thought.

He didn’t hear the witch’s reply.

The door was pushed open, and Vimes looked at the man who entered. He certainly didn’t look like a _wizard_ , that much was true, although he wore a black, pointy hat, which he removed and handed to Spud. Spud held the hat quite reverently, and carefully brought it over to the dresser, setting it down like an offering to a god he was very afraid of.

Mr Drumknott wore a very drab, black cloak that reminded Vimes of a clerk’s robe: buckled with two silver fastenings over his chest, the skirt came down to his ankles, but opened to let his trousered legs walk unencumbered. He watched as Mr Drumknott unbuckled the cloak and handed that to Spud, where it received the same treatment as the hat: Mr Drumknott wore a black suit, not dissimilar to the sort of thing Vimes saw people wear for riding. The trousers were tightly tailored to his legs and tucked into boots covered over with buckles, and he wore a jacket that could only be described as _sensible_ , which seemed to have a good many pockets.

He wore, Vimes noted, a tie, although he could only see the knot of it, as the tail was tucked under a black woollen jumper. There were several silver pins stabbed through it.

“Mr Vetinari, is it?” Mr Drumknott asked as he neatly rolled up his sleeves, revealing forearms marked over with scars and cuts and burns. He had a funny sort of face: his expression was serious, but his cheeks had a natural, rosy flush to them, as if he was made to be cheerful. If Drumknott’s face was made to be cheerful, Mr Drumknott certainly hadn’t gotten the memo.

“It’s lord, actually,” Vetinari said. His thin lips were _almost_ threatening to smile.

“Very well, Mr Lord,” the witch said in businesslike tones.

Vimes unsuccessfully tried to pass his laugh off as a hacking cough, and Vetinari gave him a Look.

Vimes walked away from the bed to look out of the window at the village of Sto Radley, and lit a cigar.

It went out.

Vimes stared at it.

Frowning, he lit another match, and held it to the end of the cigar. He watched as the tobacco slowly turned red as it caught, and then dimmed to nothingness as he drew the match away. He turned his head and looked to Vetinari and Drumknott. Mr Drumknott was not paying attention to Vimes, and had drawn back the sheet to examine Vetinari’s leg: _Vetinari_ was looking directly at Vimes, his eyebrows raised, his lips shifted into a smirk.

“Mr Drumknott,” Vimes said, “my cigar.”

“Mr Vimes?”

“It won’t light.”

“Won’t it? What a shame. Perhaps you ought take it outside.” He gently drew a hot, wet cloth over the surface of Vetinari’s thigh, and Vimes watched the Patrician grit his teeth, but he didn’t let out a noise.

Vimes looked to Spud, who was shaking his head very emphatically at Vimes. Vimes scowled.

“Mr Drumknott,” he said, “Lord Vetinari is in my charge. I can’t leave him alone with you. Someone has already tried to kill him tonight.”

“You are suggesting that _I_ will make an attempt on the life of Mr Lord?” Drumknott asked blandly. Vetinari’s lip twitched, and Vimes felt his own brow furrow. “Why, Mr Vimes, what a curious suggestion.”

Spud shook his head so hard that his head looked as if it might tumble from his neck.

“Vimes,” Vetinari said, “ _do_ go and check on the rest of the caravan, would you? There’s a good man.”

Vimes considered this for a long moment. Was it worth the fight? Was it worth the fight when Sybil was upstairs, undressing for bed, and they probably wouldn’t have to go to this awful ball after all? _Was it?_

He began lighting his cigar as he left the room. It lit as he crossed the threshold, and into the inn proper.

 **♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔**

“Does that hurt?” Mr Drumknott asked quietly, and Vetinari closed his eyes.

The pain was… _agonising_.

There was always a certain baseline of pain from the old injury. It was normally dull, but everpresent. Most of the time, he did not need to rely on his cane, even, although he preferred to keep it ever to hand, that no one comment upon it on the days where he truly _did_ need it: it was comfortable indeed, to allow the citizens of Ankh-Morpork to think him a thespian, playing at injury. It was better still when they truly thought him _weak_.

“Yes,” Vetinari said. “Your fingers are very cold.”

“Yes, Mr Lord, owing to bad circulation,” the witch replied: his thumbs, so cold as to be almost like ice, dragged over the centre of thick scar tissue, and Vetinari let out a bitten off groan of pain, but the pain shifted slightly, as if something had suddenly shifted under the flesh, and it lessened considerably. "I do apologise." He didn't sound sorry. Vetinari didn't especially want him to. The pain was still present, _always_ present, but it was…

Lesser.

He exhaled in relief.

“You’ve pulled a muscle, Mr Lord, that’s all,” Drumknott murmured. “You’ll be right as rain in a few days, although you ought make use of that cane.”

“I couldn’t walk,” Vetinari said.

“Yes, it’s like that sometimes,” Mr Drumknott said. “The pain must have felt much worse than it otherwise would have, because of the old injury here.” Drumknott’s fingers drew over the scar tissue, gentle, if cold, and Vetinari exhaled, looking at his face. Drumknott’s expression was quietly serious. “Spud, get Mr Lord some more water, will you?”

“Yessir,” Spud said, and rushed toward the door.

“He was my first delivery,” Mr Drumknott murmured, gently setting his cold fingers at the underside of Vetinari’s knee and encouraging him to draw up the leg. It hurt somewhat, but once his knee was raised, his foot flat against the mattress, there _was_ relief on the muscle in his thigh, and he exhaled as Drumknott drew the sheet back over him. "I was only seventeen."

It was lucky, Vetinari felt. Had it been a truly dangerous injury, one that would linger in its effects, he might have been in some danger: it did not do, to be seen as someone who might be _hurt_ , except in small, negligible ways.

“My name,” Vetinari said, “is _not_ Mr Lord.”

“No,” Drumknott agreed.

“It is Lord Vetinari.”

“Yes,” Drumknott agreed.

“The Patrician of Ankh-Morpork.”

“I’ve seen your face on the stamps.”

Vetinari looked at Mr Drumknott’s face. He was smiling as he held out Vetinari’s glass, that he might take it and take a small sip. It was a small smile, but it was the smile of one who smiled often, in just the same little, private way. It was the sort of smile that could be a very sharp blade, or a very soothing balm, from one second to the next. Vetinari, still reeling with the way the pain had lessened so considerably, felt slightly dizzy.

“You became Patrician when I was ten, after that rebellion against Lord Snapcase,” Mr Drumknott said quietly. “My mother cried, she was so relieved. She’d been quite terrified of him.”

Vetinari took this in.

“You’re from Ankh-Morpork, then?” he asked, slowly.

“I was born in Dimwell.”

“And you left to become a witch?”

“I did. When I was thirteen, after my mother died.”

“There aren’t many male witches.”

“Mr Lord, there aren’t many witches, full stop. There aren’t _enough_ , anyway. I cover a very wide territory here. That’s why I was late calling in to you tonight: I was in Kecks, about sixteen miles widdershins of here. I had to fly.” Even as he spoke at length, there was a polite distance in the way Drumknott spoke: he did not shy away from meeting Vetinari’s gaze, but it felt cold whenever he did so, as if he was building a wall between the two of them in his mind.

“To fly?”

“By broomstick.”

“Do you really do that?”

“Of course.”

Vetinari looked at Drumknott, at his neatly coiffed hair, at his drab, but well-pressed suit. He wasn’t especially old: he was only in his thirties, and he had the unfortunate features of one who looked much younger than he really was. There was _something_ in this, some unspoken instinct encouraging him to go on questioning, but why, Vetinari could not say.

“What were you doing in Kecks?”

“Midwifing.”

“Boy or girl?”

“Boy _and_ girl. Twins.” Drumknott said this with a slight smile on his face, and Vetinari watched him as he moved across the room, taking up his cloak and drawing it onto his shoulders, then reaching for his hat. The smile disappeared, Vetinari noticed in the reflection of the window, as soon as he turned his back on Vetinari. There was a sense of strange significance in Vetinari’s chest, although he could not lend it voice, could not name it.

Spud rushed in with more water, refilling his drink. “You going on, Mr Drumknott?”

“Indeed, I am,” Mr Drumknott said, and Vetinari watched his fingers as he drew a pair of leather gloves from his pocket, drawing them onto his hands. They were slightly too big for him, but he didn’t seem to notice as he looked at Vetinari very seriously. “Bedrest for two days. _Gentle_ movements of the muscle, after that. Rub _this_ in twice or thrice a day. You can likely make it on to Lancre, although _don’t_ strain yourself, and rely on your cane for at least the next few weeks.”

He handed Vetinari a small tin, and Vetinari drew off the lid, inhaling. He smelt ginger and turmeric, as well as mint, comfrey… Arnica?

“An analgesic?” he asked.

“No,” Drumknott said. “Although it should ease the pain somewhat: it will bring down the swelling, and encourage the damaged tissues to repair themselves with a little more alacrity.”

“Why did you become a witch, Mr Drumknott?” Vetinari asked.

Mr Drumknott paused a moment, slowly setting his hat onto his head and adjusting it. He did look _right_ in his cloak and his black suit, in his witch’s hat, that much was true, and yet still, there was some niggling feeling that this was _wrong_ , that something was subtly off about the situation. Not about Drumknott himself, but about…

Everything.

“I felt a calling, Mr Lord,” Drumknott said. “Not vaticination, precisely, but I feel some sense of augury, of omen. Of duty. One must do as one’s duty dictates.”

“What were you going to be? If you hadn’t been a witch?”

“A clerk, I expect,” Drumknott answered, with a slight smile, as if to say, “Isn’t that silly?” It was a very cold smile, Vetinari thought.

“My clerk just died,” Vetinari murmured. “Mr Peregrine.”

“Yes, I saw his corpse,” Drumknott said. “My condolences.”

“They say that witches know when they are going to die,” Vetinari said.

“Yes,” Drumknott agreed. “We do. Wizards, too.”

“You know, then?”

“I do.”

He wanted Drumknott to stay for longer, Vetinari realized. He did not know why. There was merely an instinct, a deep-seated desire rooted in his very bones, that he wanted Drumknott to linger for longer. He was a man accustomed to trusting his instincts.

“And?” Vetinari asked.

“Mr Lord,” Drumknott said quietly, with the barest hint of accusation, although the small smile never left his lips, “had I been a clerk, I would not have seen my fortieth year. Happily, I am not a clerk: I am a witch. And with respect, Mr Lord, I _do_ have duties to be getting on with. My work here is done: my work elsewhere is _never_ over.”

“No, Mr Drumknott,” Vetinari replied, feeling as if something crucial was slipping through his fingers, a strange melancholy. “Nor mine.”

Drumknott gave a polite bow of his head, and then he turned smartly on his heel, stepping out from the room and closing the door neatly behind him.

“Don’t take it personal, sir,” Spud said as he poured Vetinari a little more water. “He gets a bit funny with strangers. And with people he knows. And with his friends, I think, though he an’t got many. My mum says he could kill a man with that smile, if it suited him, but he's a good man, really.”

“Oh, I have no doubt of _that_ , Mr Spud,” Vetinari murmured. “I have no doubt of that whatsoever.”

 **♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔**

The sense of vague, distant want lingered for some weeks.

It was not a sensation to which Drumknott was unaccustomed. Indeed, he was used to it, and had since he had left Ankh-Morpork those almost twenty years ago. Destiny was not always a clean-cut, well-trodden path. At times, instead, it was merely a ribbon, leading off in another direction, tugging now and then.

One might not be able to remove the tie about one’s wrist, the constant reminder, but one could easily cut the cord.

Drumknott knew it was the postgirl before she knocked on the door, although she startled when Drumknott opened the door before she could do so, as she usually did. She stared up at him for a moment, then said, “Hullo, Mr Drumknott,” and handed him the envelope. It was a heavy, parchment envelope, although its contents were not all that heavy. It certainly wasn’t the book he had ordered in from Sto Kerrig, and was still anticipating with growing irritation.

“Thank you,” Drumknott said, and closed the door behind her. It was an expensive envelope, although it was not one that was trying too hard to be expensive: it was practical, and he could smell the pleasant odour of the parchment paper.

 _Mr. R. Drumknott_  
_Mallowmint Cottage_  
_Sto Radley_  
_Sto Plains_

His gaze flickered from the address on the envelope to the stamp in the corner of the envelope. The Patrician’s profile, stern and etched in black and white, greeted his gaze.

Drumknott turned over the envelope, and he examined the seal in black wax: a plain shield, shining in the dim light. For a long moment, he hesitated. It felt _wrong_ , to cut through that seal, to break it: it felt somewhat like rebellion, or even like revolt.

He cut through it smoothly, and relished the smell of the wax.

He drew out the letter, first.

_Mr Drumknott,_

_My thanks for your services. The balm you provided is quite the relief, and not one I would do without. Included is a small token of my appreciation._

_Yours,_

_Mr Lord_

Drumknott didn’t smile. He never did, when he was alone.

There was a tangled emotion in his chest, a sense of _not-right_ , a sense of _sort-of-wrong._

He turned out the envelope, and let the gloves fall into his palm. They were neatly tailored, of Ankh-Morpork making: the leather was supple and black, and Drumknott knew that they would conform perfectly to his fingers as soon as he put them on, that they would cling tightly to the skin.

He could put them on.

They fit him better than his own gloves did: he could put them on, and wear them, and let them keep his hands warm. He could put them on, and smile, and then send Lord Vetinari a pleasant letter, thanking him for the gift.

He could put on these gloves, and think of Lord Vetinari whenever he did so: he could put on these gloves, and forever think, ever more so, of another world, another life, another Rufus Drumknott, a shade already prone to lingering noiselessly at his shoulder and whispering in his ear.

He threw the gloves on the fire.

Weak as he was, however, he kept the letter.

 **♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔**

Vetinari did not expect a reply from the witch in Sto Radley.

This was for the best, as he never got one.

 

[1] He had not, and certainly wasn’t considering it now. This is not to say that the water from the well in Sto Radley wasn’t clean: it was. But Spud was the son of an innkeeper, in a village that, outside of the glen that made up its borders, was surrounded by fields of grain on every side. He drank hops-heavy beer, and very little else, and had done since he was seven.

[2] His actual name, the proprietor of the inn, Mrs Bowtruckle, had said to Vimes, was James Samuel Bowtruckle. As to why he was named Spud, that was a tale lost to the annals of history.

**Author's Note:**

> Hit me up [on Dreamwidth](https://dictionarywrites.dreamwidth.org/2287.html). Requests always open.
> 
> I run a [Discworld Comm](https://onthedisc.dreamwidth.org/), and there's also [a Discord right here.](https://discord.gg/b8Z3ThH)


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